Bedell Smith, General Walter, 1895-1961

A staff officer who had risen from the ranks, he became, at the outbreak of the war, Secretary of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff and American Secretary of the Anglo-American Combined Chiefs of Staff. In September 1942 he went to England to become Chief of Staff to EISENHOWER, with whom he remained to the war’s end. Eisenhower enormously valued his services and talents which were those of the perfect soldier-diplomat. He laid the basis for the negotiation of the Italian armistice of 1943 and arranged the surrender of the German forces in the west in May 1945.